Mid Ocean Pit Stop

Miss Molly 4
Bob & Peggy Wilkerson/Geoff & Merel Pettifer
Mon 3 Nov 2008 08:36
23:39.36S 178:54.27W

If we talk with land lubbers about offshore passages, often the question comes up: what do you do at night, where do you stop? And our standard reply is always: We don't. Our friends always likes to pull their legs, and if they ask them whether they anchor for the night (as if you can carry miles of chain) they reply: Oh no, we just pull into a marina!

Last night felt like we had pulled into a marina. If you zoom in on Google Earth you can see where we spent last night. Minerva Reef turned out to be flat calm. Such a cool experience mid ocean - unheard of! We decided to take it a little further and invite our first ever offshore guest over for dinner (dorado which we caught yesterday afternoon) - Sam of Ramprasad. Awesome to see other people on passage! We were in the reef with 5 boats and the others had been there for at least a few days already. Wish we could do the same, but alas, the available weather slot urges us to keep moving and you have to make use of what you've got when you get it!

We are now underway again, like new after a great night's sleep. From our near-shore contact Mr. John we heard that there is a serious squall heading for Minerva tonight, so we will make sure we will be a fair distance away by then. We can see several boats this morning on their way into Minerva, they will be protected enough within the reef when the squall hits, although there will be strong winds. We would rather miss it completely if we can. Good thing Miss Molly is a fast boat, to the envy of many of the cruisers around us.

The sun is out and so are the sails, 15 kts Easterlies, making 8.7 kts.

We'll keep you posted. Bye for now,

Geoff & Merel